Monday, July 03, 2006

Young Avengers - Read it!

Young Avengers - why aren’t you reading it?! Okay, I just recently discovered it myself, but what an amazing book! I remember ordering five copies of the first issue when Marvel released the initial solicitation for this book – and I ordered them more or less as a joke. I mean, really, who could take a book called “Young Avengers” seriously? And the character names sounded like something straight out of another book I never cared for: DC’s Legion of Superheroes. Talk about some real winners: Iron Lad, Asgardian, etc. Geez. Iron Lad – blech.

Then I did something stupid. I read the first trade paperback for this series. Holy Cow! I was instantly hooked. The idea works. No, it more than works, the idea behind this series absolutely stomps most of Marvel’s other currently running series into the ground. Yes, this book is better than the X-Men have been in years (Astonishing X-Men, excepted), better than Spider-Man has been in recent memory, and even better, to me, than The Runaways, Marvel’s critically acclaimed smash hit series about another group of teenagers trying to make it in a tough world.

The Young Avengers features some incredible writing by Allen Heinberg, and Jim Cheung’s (famous for his work at CrossGen) absolutely best artwork to date. There is a long and involved subplot that is building slowly and quietly throughout the series while shorter, character building stories are the focus of the individual issues. No, don’t worry – there’s plenty of action to keep things moving along, but the characters and the interplay between characters is what really strikes a chord with me.

To sum up, read this series! The stories are incredible and the artwork is absolutely gorgeous. Read it!